Tips for effective time management

According to research by the Development Academy, only one in five people (18%) manage their time well. That means many people don't know how to be productive. But with a little help, everyone can learn how to manage their time properly. 

Now let's see the best tips!

1. Setting achievable targets

The basis of effective time management is setting specific goals. It is important that these are always achievable and measurable. When defining them, it is worth taking into account SMART method to use.

That is, the goals should be:

• Specific: specific, concrete
• Measurable: are measurable
• Achievable / attainable / actionable: accessible / feasible / action-oriented
• Relevant: are relevant, important
• Time-related: time-limited
  

2. Proper prioritisation

The important and urgent matrix, made famous by Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, can be a great help.

Accordingly, it is useful to review our tasks and categorise them as follows:

• Important and urgent - These tasks must be carried out immediately.
• Important but not urgent - In this case, the deadline for action should be specified.
• Urgent but not important - Where possible, it is worth delegating the work to someone else.
• Not urgent and not important - You can then put aside what you have to do and deal with it later.  

Tasks that we think are unnecessary and time-consuming should simply be removed from our agendas. By doing this, we can free up a lot of extra energy and time for ourselves, which we can use for things that are really worthwhile.

3. Set a deadline for completing tasks

Having a specific date by which the work has to be done makes the agenda more predictable, focused and efficient. It also helps you to think about how long the task will take and can highlight problems at the planning stage that might not come to light until later. However, it also allows a solution plan to be developed earlier.

Let's say you need to prepare three case studies, but during the planning stage it becomes clear that you can only fit a maximum of two documents into your time. In this case, the third can be given to a colleague so that everything is completed on time.

However, if you don't plan ahead, the problem can come to light at the last minute, when there is no time to get anyone else involved.

4. Always plan your daily, weekly and monthly tasks in advance

It's important to start each day knowing exactly what you have to do. It's a good idea to make a precise list of what you need to do the day before so that you can start the morning with an efficient work routine. It is also essential to have a weekly and monthly overview of what needs to be done.

You can use a calendar to plan your work, but there are also a number of great task management apps that make it easy to create to-do lists and manage your projects.

Which are the most popular?

• Trello - It is one of the most used time management apps, which is equivalent to a project management platform. It can be used on a computer or mobile phone, easily shared with team members. It can manage texts, images, videos. Easy to keep track of daily, weekly and monthly tasks.  
• Asana - A great platform for managing complete projects. In addition to tasks, you can also define subtasks, responsibilities and deadlines, great for teamwork.
• Microsoft To-do - It was born as the successor to Wunderlist. Tasks can be easily assigned deadlines, reminders, files and notes. Also a great team work tool.

5. Limit the time you spend answering emails

Checking and replying to emails is a stressful and often time-consuming task. Statistics show that on average we spend 30 hours a week on our emails. If we think about it, we could be doing a lot of other important tasks in that time.  

It's a good idea to set aside a specific time in the day to spend just on emailing. It's a good idea to check your emails in the morning and reply to the most important ones, and to spend a shorter time on them later in the day.

6. Work when you are most productive

Some are early risers, while others are night owls. We are all different and like to work at different times of the day or night.

In time management, this plays a huge role because we can do our jobs most efficiently in the shortest time if we use our most productive hours.

For early risers, it's best to schedule important tasks for the morning, while late risers are better off tackling them in the evening. Never force yourself to work when you know you are not being productive, as this wastes a lot of time.

7. Take a break between tasks

A lot of work done in one go can do more harm than good. We need breaks to allow our brains to refresh and refocus on the task at hand. A walk, a coffee break, exercise or even a short relaxation session can do the trick. 

Interesting fact: The so-called pomodoro technique is the brainchild of Francesco Cirillo, who said that you can work most efficiently if you concentrate on one task for a certain period of time and then take a break. So while you're doing the work, you should avoid all other activities, phone calls, answering emails, etc. It is very effective to record all this, either on paper or electronically. For example, after 25 minutes of work, we take a 5 minute break to give our brain a rest. The key to effectiveness is to avoid multitasking.

8. Align our tasks with others

Once deadlines have been set for each project task, it's time to think about the best days to complete them. For example, if there is work that requires the involvement of others, we need to coordinate these tasks with the others' schedules.